Les Enfants Modèles

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Exhibition

Les Enfants Modèles

Venue

Musée de l’Orangerie - Paris

Client

La Réunion des Musées Nationaux

Project Manager

Agence NC

Area

450 m²

Scenographic arrangement, fabrication of the walls in BA13, furniture in the workshop, assembly on site, painting of all volumes, wallpaper, showcases, glass domes.

November 25, 2009, to March 8, 2010

Les Enfants Modèles

Scenes of Life, Intimate Scenes

A journey through history, the exhibition “The Model Children” offers a unique perspective on the work of artists. Model children on canvas, at least in appearance, were they really so exemplary? Inspirations for the artist who had them pose, often turbulent as one can be at the age they are depicted, they yielded to the demands and whims of their parents. Occupied with drawing using toys and objects that some believed to be the subject of the painting, they are caught candidly, the gaze of visitors intruding into these scenes of life that have become intimate scenes.

Les Enfants Modèles

A plurality of experiences

Followed by the eyes of these impassive or laughing faces, visitors wander through the exhibition, pausing at a painting by Picasso, at a canvas by Rousseau, at a portrait of Pierre Arditi, and finally, at a sculpture representing Jean-Paul Belmondo. For the first time, the models that are usually ignored and whose history is questioned come to life and form, providing their testimony about these sometimes endless and terrible posing sessions. Thus, there were many injunctions from Georges Arditi ordering his children not to move. No less difficult, the modeling experience of Jean-Marie Rouart was an opportunity for him to escape. “Immobile, with my mind elsewhere racing far from the painter who was laboring over me, it was the ideal opportunity to indulge in what has always been my fateful inclination and favorite occupation: dreaming my life.” Numerous varied testimonies reflect the plurality of experiences of these children.

Les Enfants Modèles

Trouble and discoveries

A clever idea not only to juxtapose these testimonies with the paintings but also to present the objects that kept the models calm: dolls, toy soldiers, hoops, all these toys contribute to the feeling of entering a family space, often obscured by art history and pushed aside by the artist himself. Following the works of well-known painters, more informal works that are delightful to discover appear: Albert Braïtou-Sala or Louis Bouquet thus take their place alongside Picassos, Renoirs, and Denis. The visitor finds themselves smiling upon discovering a painting of Raymond Lévi-Strauss, father of Claude Lévi-Strauss, depicted here straddling a wooden horse, and feels disturbed in front of the portrait of Kizette de Lempicka, made by her mother Tamara, which served as the cover for Nabokov’s Lolita. Real gazes, witnesses to a life and a history, too often set aside in favor of their parents’ stories.

By giving a voice to model children and opening the door to the intimate space of posing sessions, the Musée de l’Orangerie presents a lovely exhibition, full of gaze and narrative, that steps outside conventions and takes visitors off the beaten path.